War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [122]
“Once again, Colonel,” the general said, “I cannot in any case leave half my men in the woods. I beg you, I beg you,” he repeated, “to take up your position and prepare for the attack.”
“And I beg you not to interfieren in vat is not your business,” the colonel replied hotly. “If you vere a cavalryman…”
“I am not a cavalryman, Colonel, but I am a Russian general, and if that is not known to you…”
“Very much known, Your Excellency,” the colonel suddenly cried, starting his horse and turning a reddish purple. “Be so kind please to go to the front, and you vill see that this position is good für nothing. I do not vant to destroy my regiment für your pleasure.”
“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not concerned with my own pleasure, and I will not allow you to say so.”
The general, accepting the colonel’s invitation to a tournament of courage, drew himself up and, frowning, rode with him in the direction of the front, as if all their differences had to be resolved there, at the front, amidst the bullets. They reached the front, several bullets flew over them, and they stopped in silence. There was nothing to look at there, because even from the place where they had been standing before, it had been clear that cavalry could not operate in the bushes and ravines, and that the French were turning their left wing. The general and the colonel stared sternly and significantly at each other, like two cocks preparing to fight, vainly waiting for signs of cowardice. Both passed the examination. Since there was nothing to say, and neither of them wanted to give the other a pretext for claiming he had been the first to run away from the bullets, they would have stood there for a long time, testing each other’s courage, if at that moment, in the woods, almost behind them, there had not come a crackle of musket fire and a muffled, merging cry. The French had attacked the soldiers who had gone there for firewood. The hussars could no longer retreat together with the infantry. They were cut off from the path of retreat to the left by the French line. Now, however inconvenient the terrain was, it was necessary to attack in order to cut a path for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov served had just had time to mount its horses when it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as on the Enns bridge, there was no one between the squadron and the enemy, and there lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of fear, like the line separating the living from the dead. All the men sensed that line, and the question of whether they would or would not cross that line, and how they would cross it, troubled them.
The colonel rode up to the front, angrily gave some answer to the officers’ questions, and, like a man desperately insisting on having his own way, gave some order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor of an attack swept through the squadron. The command to form up was heard, then sabers shrieked as they were drawn from their scabbards. But still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, both infantry and hussars, sensed that their superiors themselves did not know what to do, and the indecisiveness of the superiors communicated itself to the troops.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” thought Rostov, sensing that the time had come at last to experience the delight of an attack, of which he had heard so much from his hussar comrades.
“God be with us, lads,” Denisov’s voice rang out. “At a trot, march!”
The croups of the horses in the front row moved. Little Rook pulled at the reins and started off himself.
To the right Rostov saw the first rows of his hussars, and still further ahead